Recall the time when your only choice for connecting to the Internet was to boot up your PC or laptop? Well, those times are gone. You have more solutions than ever before to access the Internet, anything from your smartphone to your tablet to your video-game console. And this, as much as anything, is sending PC sales into a downward spiral. Web site Business Insider has declared this the end of the PC era.

Are PCs outdated?

PCs aren’t sitting on store shelves gathering dust. People are still purchasing them. But they’re not purchasing them in the numbers they were in the past. Remember when PCs were the must-have electronics item? That’s far from the situation today. People today prefer mobile devices. That’s where you’ll see the shortages come the holiday shopping season. When people today want to check directions, send and receive e-mail messages and see their favorite TV shows, they’re turning to smartphones and tablets. They’re not depending on the PC. That’s why it’s little surprise that in their story Business Insider, quoting numbers from research firms IDC and Gartner, show that PC sales have remained flat since 2009 while the number of smartphones sold has easily overtaken PC sales.

Tablets are Hot, Not PCs

If this is the end of the era of the PC, what era is it? The numbers increasingly indicate that we’re now in the era of the tablet. Business Insider’s story quotes numbers from Gartner, Strategy Analytics and IDC showing that consumers today are buying more tablets than they are PCs. And consumers aren’t happy to have only one iPad . The numbers as of July of 2012 show that 32.3 percent of U.S. report that their homes have two iPads, while 10.1 percent had three. That’s rather impressive demand for a product that’s still relatively new.

A dreary future for PCs?

PC makers shouldn’t depend on a brighter future. As outlined by Business Insider, citing numbers from Nielsen, about 40 percent of consumers who are older than 13 would like to purchase a tablet in the next six months. That’s far more than the 19 percent who want to buy a computer. If you think that’s bad, consider that young consumers, especially, seem to be weary of the PC. According to Business Insider, more than 75 percent of young consumers are interested in a tablet within the next six months. Just 30 percent of young people are interested in buying a computer.

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